The State of Civil Society in Japan

Edited by Frank J. Schwartz and Susan J. Pharr

Japan, with its homogeneity and tradition of deference to authority, "may not strike the casual observer as the most fertile ground" for investigating civil society, writes Frank J. Schwartz, associate director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University (coeditor Susan J. Pharr is director). But "setting bounds to the state and market and freeing space for plurality--the foci of a civil society approach--are key issues for Japan, and they have been intensely and widely debated by the Japanese themselves as well as by foreign scholars." The book's 15 chapters address such topics as religion, unions, consumer activism, the media, corruption, and trust.